‘
Tiger kissing’ animal trainer, who has also helped deliver the cubs, shares her simple formula of safety with Guo Shuhan
Chao Gaimin has been earning her stripes as China’s most famous woman tiger trainer with her “tiger kissing” stunt in 2007.
In this trick, the 29-year-old woman feeds a more than 200-kg Manchurian tiger a chunk of meat on a skewer which she clenches in her teeth. The big cat’s tongue nearly licks its trainer’s lips as it chomps the glob of flesh, flashing its 4 inch-long fangs in Chao’s face.
The crowd goes wild.
“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous,” she says, smiling. “I have to close my eyes and drum up my courage. I meditate before every show and hope it all goes smoothly.”
The woman rewards the tigress with a playful pat or loving hug. The way the creature relishes her affection makes it seem more like an outsize tabby cat than an enormous predator.
Chao was born as the third child of a poor family in Henan province’s Chaoxiaozhai village and was forced to leave school to help the family at age 14. She worked as a migrant laborer for the following two years, until a friend introduced her to the world of animal trainers in a local circus.
Since Chao viewed the animals she worked with – snakes, bears, monkeys and elephants – as family members, she proved able to train them quickly, she says.
This enabled her to land a job at the Wuqiao Qunyi Circus, China’s largest big top, in 1998. Qunyi was founded in Hebei province’s Wuqiao, the birthplace of China’s acrobatics and circuses, 19 generations ago and has remained a family business. The boss Yu Jinsheng claims it is the only circus licensed by local and central forestry bureaus to domesticate and breed performing animals.
Less than a month after starting the job, Chao began working with Manchurian tigers.
“Some of my colleagues envy my natural kinship with animals,” Chao says. “The secret is having the right attitude. I never physically punish them. And rather than look down on them, I speak to them as if I was chatting with pals.”
Of Qunyi’s 10 tigers, Chao is closest to 7-year-old Hu Niu and her mate, 8-year-old Hu Zai, who has been trained by her since he was 1.
Chao became the first Chinese to deliver tiger cubs when she helped Hu Niu through a difficult 10-hour labor. She took no extra precautions, even though she knew tigresses are particularly prone to aggressiveness when giving birth.
She and her husband, who is also an animal trainer, took over the care of two of the six cubs. The trainers slept with the cubs so they could feed them through the night.
Over the years, Chao has learned how to read the big cats’ moods by their facial expressions and sounds.
“If they’re happy, they’ll let their tongues hang out and narrow their eyes,” she explains. “And if they feel lonely, they murmur at night and gaze into the distance with a look of longing. When they growl, I know they’re rejecting my commands, so I let them rest rather than perform.”
She hasn’t had many close calls and only has a scar or two on her hands from tiger claws. The nearest she has come to danger was when Hu Zai, who weighs five times more than the 50-kg woman, pinned Chao to the ground when she disturbed the pair’s mating.
Chao says she isn’t afraid of being attacked.
She has heard about many trainers who have been mauled or killed by their tigers, such as German-American Roy Horn of Siegfried and Roy. Horn was left partially paralyzed after being attacked by a 7-year-old white tiger on his 59th birthday in 2003.
“I never test my luck,” Chao says.
“I make sure my tigers are in a good mood and cooperative when it’s showtime and I firmly believe that if I respect them, they’ll respect me, too.”
Last November, the circus settled in Jiangsu province’s Suzhou for a half-year run in the Baixiangwan Scenic Spot.
But the two traveling entertainers don’t take their 5-year-old son with them to new locations. The little boy stays with Chao’s mother in her hometown.
While Chao’s mother is always concerned for her daughter’s safety, her son often boasts about his parents.
Chao earns 5,000 yuan ($732) a month and hasn’t yet planned for retirement, which usually begins in the 40s for animal trainers.
Until then, the lionhearted woman trainer will continue enjoying a career in which she has the tiger by the tail.
Popularity: 7% [?]
I know that some people love exotic animals. But you must understand that tigers are primarily wild animals, especially because they are cats, a cat is hard to domesticate. Sooner or later something bad will happen, and people will blame the animal, but it’s not animals fault, just no one likes to be in the cage. My advice to you is, do not try this at home.